Trump Versus the U.S. Media -- Has The Media Finally Stiffened Its Spine?
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What is the opening context and who are the guests on this episode?
Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, and it's coming up right after this.
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, Reporter's Notebook on this Tuesday. Rob Russo's here, but if you see Althea Raj in this f picture uh watching it on YouTube, then you you're watching an old edition because Althea's sick today. She's got what seems to be a vicious cold that's passing around, certainly parts of Canada. Sitting in for Althea, Andrew McDougal. in London, England. Um Andrew, of course, uh is well he's a columnist these days for a variety of different publications, but he's best known certainly to us. Not only as a good writer, but a former uh director of communications, a press secretary for Stephen Harper. Uh when he was working out of the PMO in Ottawa. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you two guys today on this edition of Reporter's Notebook
Yeah, so you both have that connection with Andrew, uh just as I said, back working in the comms department of the PMO, and Rob, uh, as a former Washington correspondent for um Canadian Press, now working for the Economist out of Ottawa. But I wanted to talk to you about the whole situation that's been going on in in in Washington for the last week, but really for the last ten years. And that's the relationship between Donald Trump and the media, which has seemed to reached a certain new level in this last week as he's banned CNN, MS Now, political, threatening to do the same in the New York Times and Washington Post from the White House. That's one step. The second step is there seems to finally be, after ten years, a bit of a backbone developing in the rest of the uh press corps in uh Washington, especially T V press corps, um against Trump as a result of these actions against the media.
So I wanna get your thoughts first of all and then talk about it a little bit. But Rob, why didn't you start us as somebody who used to work in that uh In that area. What do you think?
Sure. I I I think that uh tension between um political reporters and those they cover is not just normal. I think it's desirable. Uh I I think that uh we're not there to lead cheers. Uh we're there to hold people uh who hold power to account. We we we need to take that responsibility very seriously. Uh and and realize that we're uh um As Donald Trump said, we're in the people's house. Right. But we are representatives of of the people. Um the the problem comes when politicians and the people who work for them don't understand what the accountability function is. They think that we should just go there often and um take our our spit catchers or lie detectors or cameras uh and and point them towards those who are making pronouncements and just
Just record them and send them out. That that's not journalism, that's stenography. Our job is to ask them why they're doing what they're doing and whether or not that that benefits the people that they pledge to represent. Often our job is also to try and find out what they're not telling us. There isn't a government uh anywhere uh that hasn't tried to hide things that it's Doing from the people that that elected them. There's nothing new about this tension. It's perfectly normal. Andrew worked for a government of Stephen Harper that had a very tempestuous relationship with the media. It tried to bring in a new covenant as to as to how the prime minister was asked questions, and that didn't go over very well.
But I think of Nixon, who wanted to move the uh the reporters out of the White House and actually move them into an area where there used to Be a pool, I would go into that briefing room. It was barely covered over. There were rats running around the press room, and he loved the fact that there were rats running around there with the reporters. Pierre Trudeau got into fist fights with my friend and neighbor down the street here, Jimmy Munson. He got into a fist fight with Jimmy Munson. They had to be separated before anybody landed a blow. So so the the tension is normal and desirable.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the opening context and who are the guests on this episode?
0:00–7:11
2
How have Donald Trump’s bans on major news outlets changed the U.S. media landscape?
7:11–13:02
3
Why are journalists now showing a stronger backbone against Trump after ten years?
13:02–23:44
4
Is truth becoming just another opinion in modern journalism?
23:44–33:39
5
How do social‑media platforms affect the value and distribution of truth?
33:39–44:07
6
What impact does the Trump‑media conflict have on public trust in the press?
44:07–44:46